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Press Release
(English / Chinese)

A Unique Educational Tool Launched Today
by Toronto ALPHA & TDSB

"This is unique, unprecedented and will be influential!" Dr. Joseph Wong, Chair of Toronto ALPHA (Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia), delightedly described the progress as "landmark", after announcing the official launch of the "Iris Chang – the Rape of Nanking" DVD and its Study Guide in a media conference yesterday (June 22nd). Together with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which is the first school board that passed a motion to purchase the DVD as an educational tool for their teachers, ALPHA also introduced an internet-accessible, theme-based and informative Study Guide for the teaching of WWII history in Asia as humanity lessons.

The Docu-Drama "Iris Chang -the Rape of Nanking" is based on a non-fiction book, "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II ", and the experiences of its author, Iris Chang.


The book broke a six-decade-long international silence on the subject of the massacre in Nanking (now Nanjing) during the second Sino-Japanese War, and it hit the best-seller list in 1997. Since November 2007, the Docu-Drama has been screened in many cities and universities in North America and around the world. In order to spread the facts of the gruesome WWII atrocity in a much larger scale, so as to seek peace, justice and humanity for the succeeding generations, ALPHA (Toronto) decided to make a DVD as an educational tool to facilitate teachers in class.

The DVD has subtitles in 7 languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. It makes it possible for educators in most parts of the world to use as a teaching tool in classrooms. The DVD comes with a Study Guide, which can be used in the teaching of subjects relating to Asian History during WWII period: militarism, genocide, social justice, human rights, gender issues, etc.

This is the first attempt in the world after the end of WWII to widely spread the facts of the gruesome WWII atrocity through the education system. "We have supporters all over the world," Flora Chong, the vice president of ALPHA, felt thrilled when talking about the efforts to make this happen, "And we have confidence that through education, we will have more people joining us to promote our mission, which is an integral part of the work of humanity development".

Education is an important means to achieve the goals of human development. As the largest school board in Canada, in January 2008, TDSB unanimously passed a motion to purchase the DVD for teachers to use in class. With the unique Study Guide, educators can make references to the film, which has been divided into 28 chapters, under various suggested subjects in their own curricula.

To show their support, Gerry Connelly (Director of Education, TDSB), Shaun Chen (Trustee, TDSB), Amy Chan and Carole Whelan (High school teachers who contributed to editing the Study Guide) all attended today's conference. They shared their perspectives about this issue and encouraged all high school teachers to use the DVD. A Grade-10 student, Jessica Peng also shared her feelings. Jessica is a Canadian-born Chinese but she did not know this part of history until she watched the movie in class and read the book right after. Out of deep thoughts, she wrote an article on what she had learnt. In the end, she said, "we must learn from history if we don't want it to happen again".

 

 

 

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